


Household Hero

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Daddyhawk, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Wasps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a wasps' nest on the porch. Clint can figure this out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Household Hero

“Clint, I don’t think that’s the way to get rid of a wasp’s nest,” Laura says as Clint pulls a garden rake from the barn wall.

“Daddy!” Lila shrieks from outside.

Clint clenches the rake handle and runs.

Lila is standing outside the front door of the house, pointing to one of the porch rafters. “I saw another one, Daddy!”

Clint pulls her by her tiny overall strap and opens the front screen door. “Go inside with your brother, okay? Don’t come out until Mommy and I say it’s okay.”

Laura is climbing the front steps shaking her head. “Clint. You can’t just knock the nest out of the rafters. You have heard of angry wasps, before, right?”

“I know!” he says. “That’s what the bucket of dish soap is for. I read they don’t like dish soap.”

“Dad,” Cooper calls from inside the house. He’s standing in his Hulk pajamas inside the screen door. “I just read that maybe spraying them with the soapy water is better than doing any knocking down of the nest stuff.” He pauses and looks down at his tablet once more. “Also, they say you should wear jeans and boots and long sleeves with a hoodie.”

Clint looks down at his cut-off t-shirt and bare feet. Okay. Maybe he hasn’t thought this through.

“And wait until winter,” Cooper adds quietly.

“What?” Laura asks.

“They say the wasps abandon their nests in the winter,” Cooper says with a shrug. He looks over at Clint expectantly.

Behind him, Lila squeaks, “I just saw another one! I’m not coming outside again until they’re gone, Daddy!”

Clint sighs. “We can’t wait until winter or your sister will miss strawberry picking season.”

“I wanna pick strawberries!” Lila wails.

Laura crosses her arms and glares at Clint.

This taking care of a house stuff that he thought he wanted so badly ten years ago? He’s seriously reconsidering at the moment. He looks back up at the nest.

“Okay,” he says, setting the rake down against the porch railing. “No rakes and I need to change clothes.” Five minutes later he has a long-sleeved hoodie on with the hood pulled up tight. It’s July and he feels ridiculous.

Lila pokes at him as he heads for the front door again. He looks down at her pig-tailed head and squinting face. “Daddy?” she says, and holds out a pink scarf she uses for dress-up games.

Cooper snickers behind him and says, “The website says a scarf is a good idea for your face.”

Clint shoots a glare over his shoulder at Coop, and then takes the pink scarf from Lila. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he says graciously. He’s worn it before.

Finally he steps outside and pulls on his gardening gloves and grabs the bottle of dish soap water from Laura, who says nothing but ducks inside the house to watch from the safety of the screen door.

He can do this. He’s an Avenger, for fuck’s sake. He reaches up, takes a deep breath, and squeezes the trigger of the bottle frantically, exactly the opposite of how he knows to do it with a gun. He gets about five squeezes in before the first very angry wasp exits the nest. He ducks and squeezes some more, trying to keep an eye on the grey mass hanging from his porch rafter.

Of course, the wasp finds the one bit of exposed skin – he forgot to tuck his hoodie into his gloves. A wasp sting on the wrist, as it turns out, hurts like a motherfucker.

“Shit!” he yells, and swats at the thing.

“Clint! Keep spraying! There’s another one!” Laura calls out.

He looks up. God dammit. He sprays. He sprays the bottle like he’s in the middle of an op and his life depends on it. Soap covers the nest and wasps are dropping out of it, not quite dead yet, but unable to fly thanks to the soapy mess. Another live one escapes though, and fuck if these creatures aren’t the most focused bad guys he’s faced in months.

It finds his other wrist.

He growls and sprays some more, and finally nothing is coming out of the nest and it’s soaked through. Now he grabs the rake, ignores the throbbing of his wrists, and knocks the thing into the bucket he has waiting underneath. It falls, and a wasp staggers out of the nest, and Clint sprays it until it falls over.

He’s gasping for breath now, and Laura pushes the door open and pulls him inside.

Lila’s crying and Cooper is rushing at him to pull the hoodie off.

“Dad!” he says, “Here, get it off!” He pulls, and Clint clenches his teeth as the jacket scrapes across his wrists.

Clint pulls at the scarf because it’s gotten tangled in the hoodie, and Cooper’s about to drag Clint to the floor trying to get it off.

“Wait!” he calls, and undoes the scarf.

Cooper pulls again and the hoodie comes off.

Clint takes one look at his wrists, feels the adrenaline wear off from the nest ordeal, and his knees buckle. He slumps to the floor as his wrists are lit with fiery tendrils of pain all the way up his arms. “Owwww,” he mumbles, and Lila is crouching down in front of him.

“Daddy? Are you okay?” She asks as she twists her scarf in her hands.

“Clint, let me see,” Laura says gently, and kneels down next to him. She has a nail file in one hand and she takes his right wrist in her other and starts to scrape. It’s burning.

“What are you doing!” he snaps, and pulls his wrist away. It’s red and swelling already.

“You have to scrape the stinger out,” she says, and pulls his wrist back into her hands.

He clenches his teeth and it feels like she’s scraping a burn with a knife. “This can’t be good,” he mutters.

“Mom’s right,” Cooper says, kneeling down, too, but rubbing Clint’s back instead. That feels good. “They say it’s dangerous to try and pinch it out. Spreads poison worse or something.”

Clint sucks in a sharp breath as he feels the stinger pop from his skin, and she moves to the other wrist. A few minutes later and Lila is handing him a washcloth with ice wrapped in it and Laura’s helping him stand and move to the couch. He leans back with a moan and presses the washcloth to one of his wrists. They’re both about twice their normal size.

Laura hands him a glass of water and some Tylenol, which he swallows as quickly as possible.

“Are you feeling better, Daddy?” Lila asks, and climbs into his lap.

His wrists feel like hot balloons, and they’re throbbing with each pulse of his heart, but Lila’s on his lap holding ice on one wrist as he holds it on the other, and Cooper’s hovering nearby, watching Clint carefully.

“I’m watching for signs of ana- anafflac- “ he stutters at Clint.

“Anaphylactic shock,” Clint finishes for him.

“Yeah, that,” Cooper says.

“I don’t think I’ll get that, but thanks, buddy,” Clint says, smiling at his son. “Oh, and maybe put your tablet away for now? You did good research, though.”

Cooper grins back at him, flicks the tablet off, and sets it on the coffee table.

“Daddy, are the wasps gone?” Lila asks.

Clint looks down and presses a kiss to her hair. “Yeah, kiddo. I know you wanna pick a whole bunch of strawberries this year.”

“They’re my favorite!” she answers.

Laura calls out from the kitchen, “Mine, too!”

“Good thing I killed those wasps, huh?” Clint says, and leans back on the couch to breathe through the pain.

A moment later, Laura presses a kiss to his cheek. “You’re my hero,” she says, and laughs.

“Mine, too!” Lila pipes up from Clint’s lap.

“Mine, too,” Cooper says under his breath, and leans into Clint’s shoulder.

 

 


End file.
